Funding & Awards

Pioneering reporter and editor Elsie M. Carper (BA ’41) worked at the Washington Post for 48 years, displaying an unwavering commitment to improving media coverage and journalism employment opportunities for African Americans and women. When she became the  Post’s first female assistant managing editor, she used her position to hire a more diverse pool of journalists.

Carper received many prestigious awards for her work on issues like teaching reading and segregation in schools. In 1990 she received a GW Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, and in 1993, she was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame. Carper gave generously to the Department of American Studies until her death in 2007. Her support helped fund two major initiatives to support student research: the Elsie M. Carper Prize, and the Elsie M. Carpenter Undergraduate Scholarship Fund.

2017–18: Samantha Gonzalez: “The Sum of the Whole: The Negro Units of the Federal Theatre Project”

2016–17: Ciaran Lithgow, “Constructing the Conservative Vision: Housing Policy in the Cold War”

2015–16: Ariel Amaru, “From Legal to Social Authority: Black Women’s Reporting of Domestic Violence”

2014–15: Altaire DeLeon, “On Negotiating Latino Vernacular Housescapes: The Spatial Performance of Mexican/Mexican-American Citizenship in East Los Angeles”

2013–14: Rachel Holbreich, “First Do Harm”

James Oliver Horton was the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at GW and Historian Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. He taught the “tough stuff” of American history with a quick wit and deep historical knowledge, introducing classes to invisibility issues being raised by black feminists, masculinity challenges for enslaved and newly freed black men and class overlaps and tensions among working-class men and women.
 

Horton’s graduate teaching produced a generation of museum staff and curators attuned to making African American history central to the history of the country. He acted as historical expert for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, and he held international influence as a visiting lecturer and professor in parts of Europe and Asia. In 2006 Horton was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. That same year, he received the George Washington University President’s Medal for scholarly achievement and teaching excellence. He died in 2017.
 

John Vlach continues to serve as an emeritus professor in the Department of American Studies, with special expertise in folklife and folk art, African American folklife and vernacular architecture. He has authored 10 books and served as a guest curator or consultant to numerous museums in the past 30 years. He has contributed to exhibitions from the New Orleans Museum of Art to the Henry Gallery in Seattle, and he continues to be closely involved with several museum and historical preservation projects in Washington, D.C.
 

At the request of American Studies alumna Libby Ellsworth-Kasch (BA ’08), the Jeffrey C. Kasch Foundation pledged a generous donation to the department to support student research. The foundation’s five-year pledge of annual donations will go toward the Horton-Vlach Fund, to support graduate and undergraduate students who have travel or other expenses related to their original research projects.

Many of our awardees have used their Horton-Vlach funding to conduct research around the globe. *Denotes current students 

• Craig Lanier Allen*
• Colin Anderson*
• Sara Awartani*
• Vyta Baselice*
• Jacklin Bolduan*
• Ashley Brown
• Jasmine Cannon
• Julie Chamberlain*
• Thomas Dolan*
• Brady Forrest
• Michael Horka*
• Scott Larson
• Harry Lewis*
• Joe LoyaconoBustos*
• Pat Nugent
• Kimberly Pendleton
• Kim Probolus
• Zaynab Quadri*
• George Ramirez
• Rahima Schwenkbeck
• Samantha Silver*